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Compact bidding languages and supplier selection for markets with economies of scale and scope

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  • Bichler, Martin
  • Schneider, Stefan
  • Guler, Kemal
  • Sayal, Mehmet

Abstract

Combinatorial auctions have been used in procurement markets with economies of scope. Preference elicitation is already a problem in single-unit combinatorial auctions, but it becomes prohibitive even for small instances of multi-unit combinatorial auctions, as suppliers cannot be expected to enumerate a sufficient number of bids that would allow an auctioneer to find the efficient allocation. Auction design for markets with economies of scale and scope are much less well understood. They require more compact and yet expressive bidding languages, and the supplier selection typically is a hard computational problem. In this paper, we propose a compact bidding language to express the characteristics of a supplier's cost function in markets with economies of scale and scope. Bidders in these auctions can specify various discounts and markups on overall spend on all items or selected item sets, and specify complex conditions for these pricing rules. We propose an optimization formulation to solve the resulting supplier selection problem and provide an extensive experimental evaluation. We also discuss the impact of different language features on the computational effort, on total spend, and the knowledge representation of the bids. Interestingly, while in most settings volume discount bids can lead to significant cost savings, some types of volume discount bids can be worse than split-award auctions in simple settings.

Suggested Citation

  • Bichler, Martin & Schneider, Stefan & Guler, Kemal & Sayal, Mehmet, 2011. "Compact bidding languages and supplier selection for markets with economies of scale and scope," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 214(1), pages 67-77, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:214:y:2011:i:1:p:67-77
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Alexander Teytelboym & Shengwu Li & Scott Duke Kominers & Mohammad Akbarpour & Piotr Dworczak, 2021. "Discovering Auctions: Contributions of Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 123(3), pages 709-750, July.
    2. Simon Finster, 2023. "Selling Multiple Complements with Packaging Costs," Papers 2306.14247, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2024.
    3. Mansouri, Bahareh & Hassini, Elkafi, 2019. "Optimal pricing in iterative flexible combinatorial procurement auctions," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 277(3), pages 1083-1097.
    4. Kokott, Gian-Marco & Bichler, Martin & Paulsen, Per, 2019. "The beauty of Dutch: Ex-post split-award auctions in procurement markets with diseconomies of scale," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 278(1), pages 202-210.
    5. Martin Bichler & Pasha Shabalin & Jürgen Wolf, 2013. "Do core-selecting Combinatorial Clock Auctions always lead to high efficiency? An experimental analysis of spectrum auction designs," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 16(4), pages 511-545, December.
    6. Jose L. Andrade-Pineda & David Canca & Pedro L. Gonzalez-R, 2017. "On modelling non-linear quantity discounts in a supplier selection problem by mixed linear integer optimization," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 258(2), pages 301-346, November.
    7. Andor Goetzendorff & Martin Bichler & Pasha Shabalin & Robert W. Day, 2015. "Compact Bid Languages and Core Pricing in Large Multi-item Auctions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(7), pages 1684-1703, July.
    8. Martin Bichler & Paul Milgrom & Gregor Schwarz, 2023. "Taming the Communication and Computation Complexity of Combinatorial Auctions: The FUEL Bid Language," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(4), pages 2217-2238, April.
    9. Jain, Vipul & Panchal, Gajanan B. & Kumar, Sameer, 2014. "Universal supplier selection via multi-dimensional auction mechanisms for two-way competition in oligopoly market of supply chain," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 127-137.
    10. Bichler, Martin & Goeree, Jacob K., 2017. "Frontiers in spectrum auction design," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 372-391.
    11. Romero Morales, Dolores & Steinberg, Richard, 2014. "Revenue deficiency under second-price auctions in a supply-chain setting," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 233(1), pages 131-144.
    12. Fadaei, Salman & Bichler, Martin, 2017. "Truthfulness with value-maximizing bidders: On the limits of approximation in combinatorial markets," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 260(2), pages 767-777.
    13. Bichler, Martin & Goeree, Jacob & Mayer, Stefan & Shabalin, Pasha, 2014. "Spectrum auction design: Simple auctions for complex sales," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(7), pages 613-622.
    14. Margaretha Gansterer & Richard F. Hartl, 2020. "Shared resources in collaborative vehicle routing," TOP: An Official Journal of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research, Springer;Sociedad de Estadística e Investigación Operativa, vol. 28(1), pages 1-20, April.

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